Someone once said, “When you tell your story, it sets you free, and lights the path for others.”
And in the process, begins a healing process you may not have expected.
Our father, Patrick Hill Rupertus, to whom Old Breed General is dedicated, was a USNA 1962 graduate and Marine Corps Aviator. He died in 1991 at age 52 of Agent Orange-related cancer. I was 21 and still in college. My mother, sisters Heather and Kimberly, and I were beside his bed at our home in Virginia when he took his last breath.
Devastating. Dad’s funeral service was standing room only at St. Johns Episcopal Church in McLean, Virginia. But I barely remember his burial with full military honors at Arlington Cemetery. I do remember the beautiful black horses. How their coats shined. It was all so unreal and painful. I guess my mind tried to distract me.
Eight years later, in January 2000, at age 58, our beautiful and outgoing mother, Gail Bennett Rupertus, was diagnosed with ALS – a deadly and paralyzing disease. What???!
By early 2004, she was paralyzed and could only communicate with her eyes. Despite all we did as a team to care for her, and the insanely expensive drugs, we could not halt this aggressive monster of a disease. She died on October 19, 2004.
Ugh.
After her November funeral and burial (with our father) at Arlington Cemetery in Washington, my sisters and I were at Heather’s kitchen table in Virginia. Our families were asleep, and we talked for hours into the night, having wine and sharing stories with tears and laughter.
It was at this time we realized, suddenly, we were the adults in the room.
What would we do with all of their stuff we had? We were left with mom’s apartment and memorabilia, and trunks full of military history, including photos, letters, telegrams, portraits, uniforms, medals, and buttons spread across our houses from Virginia to North Carolina and Southern California. They were from two Marines; our grandfather, General Rupertus, and our dad Patrick Hill Rupertus.
There was no talk of doing anything with the military material -other than we all agreed our grandfather’s life and the other legends in his story would make a great movie someday.
In truth, I struggled with losing our parents so early. I tucked away my grief over losing dad, avoiding and prolonging the necessary stages one is supposed to go through to deal with grief “successfully.”
Then mom got ALS.
From the 1990s to about 2014, we lost many family legends, including our parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles.
So digging into the past (and the related emotions) was something I ran from, especially since I had young kids. No time to grieve.
That was until 2016, when my friend from Charlotte, Don Brown, discovered our grandfather in his research into his book, The Last Fighter Pilot. Interested in our grandfather’s story in China and the Pacific, Don suggested I write a book about our grandfather for family and history.
Then, he added, “Do it now while you’ve got the time- before it’s too late.“
This was a good kick in the ass; Time to to take action. The kids were a little older. I needed to stop running, look back, stay awhile, and do the deep work to get this epic story out there. It was an overwhelming task to consider, but perhaps there was a story, putting pain into purpose.
As the former head of the USMC History Division said, “Silence from my grandfather has created a problem.”
I agreed.
He died in 1945.
“Silence has caused a problem.”
For me too.
However, I soon learned there was an enormous amount of work ahead to solve the problem.
We found that authors and historians may rely on scuttlebutt as fact and unknowingly or knowingly contribute to the database of misinformation by repeating this information and assuming what a person did or said. Then, somehow, that information becomes historical “fact.” Like todays “Fake News.” (See “Bias in Historical Description Interpretation and Explanation by C. Behan McCullagh https://www.jstor.org/stable/2677997)
And, we knew it was important to tell our grandfathers story to contribute to the database of history and the USMC.
As former Marine, author, and distinguished historian Colonel Joseph H. Alexander (now deceased) wrote to our mother on April 16, 1998, in response to her letter she wrote regarding a Lou Reda Production on the Pacific:
“Any general or admiral who commands in a great battle becomes, thereby, a public figure, subject to the evaluation by future historians. In the battles of World War II, legendary commanders like MacArthur, Patton, Montgomery, and Halsey each had their decisions reviewed and critiqued, often in less favorable terms. That’s history. I respect the man as I do any commander in a tough spot. He certainly had the much more difficult task of fighting that battle (Peleliu) than I have had in analyzing it a half-century later. Please let me suggest an alternate course for you; the field of military biography is crying for fresh accounts of World War II Marine commanders. Why don’t you undertake the story of the life and service of General Rupertus, a distinguished Marine about whom little is known? “
In response to this letter, our mother, Gail, began this research right before she was diagnosed with ALS.
It was time to pick up the torch from Mom and take on this unique opportunity to set the record straight. Thankfully, my sisters, Heather and Kimberly, were on board, and Kimberly had extra time to devote to this research process to send some light on our grandfather.
When I went into this book, I knew very little about our grandfather or what all the medals, citations, photos, and memorabilia in those trunks and our home library meant.
We were aware that he had reached the two-star rank of major general in World War II, was the author of the legendary Rifleman’s Creed that many a Marine has since committed to memory, and has also been featured in movies and videos. And, he might have been USMC commandant had he not died, according to Aunt Jo (our grandmother Sleepy’s sister).
We knew he served in China, tragically lost his first family, married our young grandmother Alice Hill Rupertus aka “Sleepy,” and welcomed a son—our father. We also knew he had served as a leader in the 1st Marine Division, had been at Guadalcanal and someplace called New Britain, and, as our Aunt Jo would say,” Bloody Peleliu,” where he predicted, “It will be tough, but quick.” I knew he died when my father was only six years old and that a naval destroyer, the USS Rupertus, was named in his honor.
That was it.
I had a lot to discover about the in-between—who was he? What sort of man, in other words, existed beyond the Marine Corps legend? I hadn’t considered how massive this undertaking would be, knowing he died of a heart attack in 1945, and all of his friends and our family who knew him were also gone.
Little did I know by committing to this journey of discovery, I’d be time-traveling. Sent back in time to connect with our Washington, DC legends. I got to know them better and sense their emotions. And feel their joy, shock, grief, failures, resilience, and successes.
What a luxury to slow down and connect with those we never met and lost along the way.
A healing process.
Now, after three generations of family and many years of research gathering and synthesizing data, you hold the truth in your hands when you read Old Breed General and view these blog posts.
This book took a tenacity of purpose. Yet nothing compared to the perseverance and determination of those legends, including our grandfather, the US Navy, the US Marines, and the US Army making amphibious landings into hostile territory and jumping into the Pacific under enemy fire as they raced towards the beach with their rifles, pistols, and bayonets.
The purpose of this creative non-fiction biography of our grandfather had three main objectives:
- To break the silence. To share what we learned about our grandfather, a US National Archives Person of Exceptional Performance. A prominent United States Marine Corps Major General, an expert rifleman who wrote the Rifleman Creed, served in WWI and WWII Pacific and was the namesake for the USS Rupertus.
- To present the facts. Combining our military memorabilia with the primary source material of the US Archives and additional resources.
- To tell the stories of what our grandfather experienced during his lifetime. And show what our military and civilians experienced before and during WWII. The book will also highlight key military and civilian leaders my grandfather was around, whom we know little of today.
Overall, I think we did a good job reaching those objectives.
So, do you have a story that you need to tell? Do you have pain you need to turn into purpose?
Get writing, my friend.
Start the blog. Begin your book.
Stop the drift in 2023.
Do it now for your family, history – and yourself. Why wait, any longer?
One Response
Amy, I recently purchased your excellent book at the WW2 Museum. I am about 1/3 of the way through the book. I am really enjoying it, learning a lot of new information and looking forward to finishing it. My late grandfather (Raymond Styer Sr) served with/for your grandfather (General W. H. Rupertus) during the Battle for Cape Gloucester. I have a picture of a citation your grandfather signed to meritoriously promote my grandfather in mid Feb 1944 for carrying ammo with Chesty Puller to resupply 2/7, a Marine Infantry Battalion I eventually served in from 1998-2000. I believe your grandfather also presented my father with the Navy-Marine Corps medal he got for his actions on 1 Mar 44 rescuing men from a crashed B-24. I amy have apicture of that somewhere. I am a retired Marine (Major). I was an Artillery Officer and then an Intelligence Officer (1990-2008). I did some enlisted Navy time too (1983-1985). I am so happy I discovered your book. I never could get my pappy, as we called him, to talk about his time in the USMC in WW2. Thank you for writing your book. It is helping me continue to pursue my grandfather. Keep up the good work.